What's the matter with WCCO?

Last night, the WCCO television news aired a feature that purported to answer the question, "What is intelligent design?" Given recent developments in Dover, Pennsylvania and Kansas, the matter certainly deserves serious inquiry. It's a shame that the Good Neighbor did such a piss poor job.

To begin with, the piece unquestioningly regurgitated the trope that there is some big scientific debate about evolution and ID. On the contrary, the vast majority of scientists dismiss ID because it lacks a fundamental cornerstone of good science--a testable hypothesis. ID is simply not scientific in nature. It is a thinly-disguised variation of creationist dogma which has been rejected again and again because, when taught in public schools, it violates the basic principle of church-state separation. Just because ID proponents have rounded up a few believers in labcoats to advance their cause does not make for a true scientific controversy.

Worse yet, while the report allowed that "critics" object to ID theory, it failed to quote or even name any of those critics. Instead, WCCO selected ID proponent Bruce Simat as its primary expert source.

WCCO identified Simat only as a biology professor at Northwestern College. That sounds impressive enough. But the station failed to point out several critical details, such as the fact that Northwestern College is a freakin' Bible school. And that that Simat is a supporter of the MacLaurin Institute, a Christian-study center that is dedicated to advancing notions of Biblical infallibility. And that Simat has not been listed as a primary author of a scholarly article for more than two decades.

Long story short: If there really were an intelligent designer, He would never have permitted CCO to air such an unintelligent report.